Reclaming diskspace

J

John2005

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My win8 installation is taking up 168 Gb, even though the disk is set to 64Gb.., I can't seem to se what that space is used for!!!
In parallels settings for the WM i can see that 151 Gb is marked purple"miscellaneous", I really need to figure out what is causing this.
 

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Please inspect used size with du command:
du -sh "/path/to/Windows 8.1.pvm/"*
(note: * should be outside quotes)
 
Stuw said:
Please inspect used size with du command:
du -sh "/path/to/Windows 8.1.pvm/"*
(note: * should be outside quotes)
Click to expand...

Have the same issue. Have the disk set to 40 GB but the file size is 106 GB with 66.5 GB of Miscellaneous space. Any further suggestions after running the command to confirm the file size to reduce the Miscellaneous space?
 
mpr131 said:
Have the same issue. Have the disk set to 40 GB but the file size is 106 GB with 66.5 GB of Miscellaneous space. Any further suggestions after running the command to confirm the file size to reduce the Miscellaneous space?
Click to expand...
What files/folders take disk space ?
I can't suggest anything because I don't know what do you have :( You can send me (via private message) output of ls -laR "/path/to/vm.pvm"
 
John2005 said:
My win8 installation is taking up 168 Gb, even though the disk is set to 64Gb.., I can't seem to se what that space is used for!!!
In parallels settings for the WM i can see that 151 Gb is marked purple"miscellaneous", I really need to figure out what is causing this.
Click to expand...
Hello I also have this problem with the windows 8.1 taking up 180 Gb . I do not know how to type the du command and I saw another post online using the terminal... after backing up. I do not have 180 GB space to backup. My Mac disk was full. I have managed to get a few GB to survive but soon will not be able to work.

Please could somebody give an explanation for those of us new to Macs!!!
 
To find what files take space you need to inspect the VM's bundle with following command (type carefully):
find "/path/to/vm.pvm" -type f | xargs -I% du -sm "%" | sort -n
(output number is size of file in megabytes)

Upd: command was changed to get sorted list.
 
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Stuw said:
To find what files take space you need to inspect the VM's bundle with following command:
ls -lahR "/path/to/vm.pvm"
Click to expand...
Yes but I just pointed out I do not know how to do that... is it in Terminal.... I have in the meanwhile discovered the path name (I think) is /users/Shared/Parallels/windows 8.1 pvm and that looking at that windows 8.1-0.hdd is 177.45 Gb

Not sure if I am doing the right thing (all this is new) but in Terminal I typed /users/Shared/Parallels/windows 8.1.pvm and got
five entries with my name (david),
Various permissions, the word staff hex sizes of 170B, 510B, 10B, 10B, 10B, dates Apr 1, Apr 2, Apr 1, Mar 19, Feb 5, and (location?) . then .. then C -> /Volumes/C E -> /Volumes/E and F -> /Volumes/F

I do not have the faintest idea what this means but if this is useful then please advise. Remember I am a newbie and a computer user, not a techie - I thought you could use Parallels without being a techie!

And thank you for your help - please excuse my nervousness!
 
Actually I was inaccurante... I just realised I got lots and lots of listings and what I posted previously was just the last little bit.
I have also realised this is not hex... but B for Bytes and K M and G..... sorry but learning!
 
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david1610, no problem.

Following command will find all files within the VM bundle and sort it by size (output number is size in megabytes):
find "/path/to/vm.pvm" -type f | xargs -I% du -sm "%" | sort -n

I think it will be easier to analyze sorted list.
 
Stuw said:
david1610, no problem.

Following command will find all files within the VM bundle and sort it by size (output number is size in megabytes):
find "/path/to/vm.pvm" -type f | xargs -I% du -sm "%" | sort -n

I think it will be easier to analyze sorted list.
Click to expand...
I tried to type that but got find: /users/shared/parallels/windows: No such file or directory find 8.1.pvm: No such file or directory.
This is quite a sophisticated command line - I bought a time capsule for back up but this is a time machine taking me back to MS DOS line commands twenty years ago and UNIX commands thirty years ago.
To help me
1) Are these commandlines in the Mac terminal case sensitive? Is there a difference between share and Shared
2) Does "something" mean "put a value not the literal thing here" If so, what do I put for "%"?
3) Can you have file names with spaces e.g. is the name windows 8.1.pvm or windows.8.1.pvm or is this something else?

The prompt I have in terminal is davis-mbp:\david$ is that OK to type the command?

Will play around with the command but it is not working at the moment.
Thank you
PS Is there a way of copying a command line and editing it in the Terminal (seem to remember there was something like this in MS DOS years ago), otherwise it takes ages to type it the line - can't seem to cut and paste it.
 
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Path *can* be case insensitive. It is better to type in prober case to avoid problems.

Path to your VM contains space, so you need to use quotes:
"/users/Shared/Parallels/windows 8.1 pvm"

Don't replace % sign with anything else or at least replace both %. Usually it's safe to use % for xargs.
 
Stuw said:
Path *can* be case insensitive. It is better to type in prober case to avoid problems.

Path to your VM contains space, so you need to use quotes:
"/users/Shared/Parallels/windows 8.1 pvm"

Don't replace % sign with anything else or at least replace both %. Usually it's safe to use % for xargs.
Click to expand...
Typed in find "/users/Shared/Parallels/windows 8.1.pvm" -type f | xargs -I% du -sm "%" | sort -n It worked (realised the cut paste is working on the Mac keyboard but not my pc keyboard)
I get a long list of files Most just have 0 -3 MB and most of these are snapshots.
There is a group of 10 snapshots approx. 400 -700 MBs

Then there are 11 files ranging from 5 GB to 51 GB (largest 3 20 20 and 51 GB) all called ("path" Windows 8.1-0.hdd/Windows 8.1-0.hdd.0 hex no. .hds

1. I presume the problem is there but which is which.
2. Is there a "snapshot" manager?
Making progress.... await instructions.

Oh and no idea how to delete things in case that is coming soon!
 
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Stuw said:
david1610, please create a problem report in Parallels Desktop (Help->Report a problem) and post ID here. Looks like you have snapshots.

For more information about snapshots check Save Snapshots of a Virtual Machine section of Parallels Desktop User's Guide
Click to expand...
ID is 42073892
I am not completely clear - it said I will not get a reply. I asked for support. Will I get help from here or from the support or both or neither?
What does it mean "looks like you have snapshots" - sounds like a doctor giving me bad news! How do I stop Parallels from making snapshots?
 
Looran@Parallels said:
Hi,

Please follow the link below to know how to work with snapshots, this article also explains about smart guard option to disable automatic snapshot creator:

http://kb.parallels.com/5691

Thanks,
Looran
Click to expand...
I will do that but if you look back at my posts you will see the problem is the hard disk is just about full and the large files are not snapshot files so I still have a problem. Can you explain what these large files are and which are unnecessary. Thank you.
 
Looran@Parallels said:
Hi david1610

I have sent a private message with some steps you could follow.

Let me know it this worked.

Thanks,
Looran
Click to expand...
Thank you for your support. I managed to delete the snapshots - about thirty of them - and it has solved the problem. I am now offered a message that offers me the change to reclaim space by compressing it. Is this a good idea or not?

I just also wanted to say that when I had the original problem, you helped me and then said "ah, snapshots" and left me alone. It was sudden and OK, from your point of view, you had diagnosed the problem, but as a user I felt suddenly abandoned. Then the next day I could not even start Parallels due to lack of memory. I managed to solve this and learn how to delete the snapshopts but lost a couple of days of work. that not eve
 
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